JPWO2005121978A1 - Copy control information decision device - Google Patents

Abstract

A thumbnail acquisition unit 9 that acquires individual control information that is copy control information for each of a plurality of reduced images displayed in a list at the same time, and a plurality of reduced images are listed based on the plurality of individual control information acquired by the thumbnail acquisition unit 9. A copy control information determining unit 11 that determines representative control information that is copy control information of the displayed list display image, and an output that outputs the representative control information determined by the copy control information determining unit 11 in association with the list display image. A copy control information determination apparatus comprising:

Description

  The present invention relates to a copy control information determining apparatus that determines copy control information for controlling copying of an image.

  In recent years, devices that record and play back AV (Audio Visual) content and the like have appeared on DVDs (Digital Versatile Discs) and HDDs (Hard Disk Drives). Such a device can record a large amount of content. For this reason, it is important to have a function of presenting a list of contents to the user in an easy-to-understand manner and selecting which contents to reproduce when reproducing the recorded contents. One example of this function is a still image thumbnail navigation function. The still image thumbnail navigation function is a function for displaying a plurality of thumbnails, which are reduced images of still images representing content, on one screen.

  FIG. 1 is a diagram showing an overview of a content viewing system when a still image thumbnail navigation function is activated in a conventional recording / playback apparatus. The operation of the conventional recording / reproducing apparatus will be described below with reference to FIG. The content viewing system is a system for allowing a user to view content using a recording / playback apparatus.

  In the system shown in FIG. 1, a first recording / reproducing device 21 which is a conventional recording / reproducing device is connected to a television 2 and a second recording / reproducing device 20. The first recording / reproducing device 21 is a device that records and reproduces content. The television 2 is a display device for displaying output data from the first recording / reproducing device 21. The second recording / reproducing device 20 is a device for recording a signal such as an image output from the first recording / reproducing device 21. The first recording / reproducing device 21 operates based on an instruction transmitted from the remote controller 22 operated by the user.

  The same signal is output from the first recording / reproducing device 21 to the television 2 and the second recording / reproducing device 20. That is, the second recording / reproducing device 20 can record a signal of the same image as the image output from the first recording / reproducing device 21 and displayed on the television 2.

  The first recording / reproducing apparatus 21 includes a storage medium for storing content, and the storage medium stores a plurality of contents. Then, thumbnail image data, which is a reduced image of a still image representing each content, is stored in a separate area from the content.

  It is possible to automatically determine at which position in the content the image data is the thumbnail indicating the content, or the user can specify.

  Further, the storage medium in the first recording / reproducing apparatus 21 stores copy control information, which is information for protecting the copyright of the image data, together with the image data of each thumbnail. The copy control information includes “copy permitted”, “copy once”, and “copy not permitted”. As the copy control information, copy control information added to a frame extracted as a thumbnail in the content entity data is employed. A frame is the smallest unit that constitutes a moving image.

  When the activation of the still image thumbnail navigation function is instructed by the user's operation of the remote controller 22, the first recording / reproducing device 21 reads and reproduces only the thumbnail data from its own storage medium, and causes the television 2 to display a list. By this operation, as shown in FIG. 1, a still image thumbnail navigation screen which is a thumbnail list display screen is displayed on the television 2.

  Six thumbnails are displayed simultaneously. When there are more than six thumbnails to be displayed, the user sequentially displays the remaining thumbnails by switching pages or scrolling the list.

  The user can select a thumbnail with the cross key 22 a of the remote controller 22. For example, in FIG. 1, the cursor is placed on the thumbnail 201, indicating that the thumbnail 201 is selected. Note that the cursor is represented by a thick line surrounding the thumbnail in the figure.

  When one of the thumbnails is selected, the playback key 22b of the remote controller 22 is pressed to start full-screen playback of the content corresponding to the selected thumbnail. Further, when the delete key 22c is pressed, the content corresponding to the selected thumbnail is deleted.

  As described above, the still image thumbnail navigation function is a function for displaying a list of still image thumbnails representing content and enhancing the convenience of operations such as user playback and content deletion.

In addition, when writing still image data on a DVD audio disc, a method is disclosed in which corresponding copy control information is appended to each still image and recorded (see, for example, Patent Document 1).
JP 2001-78140 A

  As described above, copy control information is added to each thumbnail. Accordingly, thumbnails to which different copy control information is added may be displayed in the list display screen.

  For example, it is assumed that the copy control information of the thumbnail 204 shown in FIG. 1 is “copy not possible” and the copy control information of other thumbnails is “copy available”.

  Under this assumption, there are two types of copy control information added to the thumbnails present on one list display screen: “copy permitted” and “copy not permitted”. In this case, the conventional recording / reproducing apparatus cannot add effective copy control information to the image signal for displaying the list display screen.

  Therefore, for example, the second recording / reproducing apparatus 20 can record the display data of the list display screen even though the thumbnail of “non-copyable” is displayed on the list display screen shown in FIG. .

  That is, in the conventional recording / reproducing apparatus, when an image in which a plurality of thumbnails are displayed in a list is output, the copy control information of each thumbnail is not considered, and the image is freely copied. It becomes. If the list display image is uniformly prohibited from being copied in order to prevent free copying, the user cannot copy the list display image even when all thumbnails can be copied.

  In view of the above problems, the present invention provides a copy control information determination device for appropriately protecting copyright on a list display image in which a plurality of reduced images indicating each of a plurality of contents are displayed in a list simultaneously. With the goal.

  The copy control information determination device according to the present invention includes a control information acquisition unit that acquires individual control information that is copy control information for each of a plurality of reduced images displayed in a list, and a plurality of individual information acquired by the control information acquisition unit. Based on the control information, determining means for determining representative control information which is copy control information of a list display image in which the plurality of reduced images are displayed in a list; and the representative control information determined by the determining means is displayed in the list Output means for outputting in association with the image.

  As described above, the copy control information determination apparatus according to the present invention determines copy control information that takes into account the individual control information of each reduced image as copy control information of a list display image in which a plurality of reduced images are displayed in a list simultaneously. To do. Further, the determined copy control information is output in association with the list display image. As a result, it is possible to appropriately protect the copyright on the list display image.

  According to the present invention, for example, an appropriate copyright is applied to a list display image of reduced images that is output from a recording / playback apparatus and allows a user to select content to be played back from a plurality of content. It is possible to provide a copy control information determination device for performing protection.

  Furthermore, the present invention can be realized as a method using the characteristic components of the copy control information determining apparatus of the present invention as steps, a program including these steps, or a CD- It can be realized as a storage medium such as a ROM or an integrated circuit. The program can also be distributed via a transmission medium such as a communication network.

FIG. 1 is a diagram showing an overview of a content viewing system when a still image thumbnail navigation function is activated in a conventional recording / playback apparatus. FIG. 2 is a diagram showing an overview of the content viewing system when the still image thumbnail navigation function is activated in the first recording / reproducing apparatus 1 according to the first embodiment of the present invention. FIG. 3 is a functional block diagram showing a functional configuration of the first recording / reproducing apparatus according to the first and second embodiments of the present invention. FIG. 4 is a diagram showing an example of the data structure of content data FIG. 5 is a diagram showing an example of a change with time of copy control information added to content entity data. FIG. 6 is a diagram illustrating an example of a plurality of thumbnail data stored in the content storage unit. FIG. 7 is a diagram illustrating an example of a television screen display when a notification panel is superimposed on a still image thumbnail screen. FIG. 8 is a diagram showing an overview of the content viewing system when the reduced video navigation function is activated in the first recording / playback apparatus 1 according to the second embodiment of the present invention. FIG. 9 is a diagram illustrating an example of a change over time of copy control information in a reduced moving image. FIG. 10 is a diagram showing a screen display example of a television when a notification panel is superimposed on the reduced video navigation screen. FIG. 11 is a diagram illustrating an example of a change over time in copy control information of each reduced moving image when six reduced moving images are simultaneously reproduced. FIG. 12 is a diagram showing an example of a range of components realized as an integrated circuit in the first recording / reproducing apparatus 1 of the first and second embodiments.

Explanation of symbols

DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 1st recording / reproducing apparatus 2 Television 3 Remote control 4 Reception part 5 Control part 6 Data receiving part 7 Data processing part 8 Content storage part 9 Thumbnail acquisition part 10 List generation part 11 Copy control information determination part 12 Notification panel generation part 13 Playback part 14 Output Unit 15 First Output Terminal 16 Second Output Terminal 20 Second Recording / Reproducing Device 60 Antenna

  Hereinafter, a recording / reproducing apparatus according to an embodiment of the present invention will be described with reference to the accompanying drawings.

(Embodiment 1)
FIG. 2 is a diagram showing an overview of the content viewing system when the still image thumbnail navigation function is activated in the first recording / reproducing apparatus 1 of the first embodiment of the present invention.

  In the system shown in FIG. 2, the first recording / reproducing apparatus 1 is connected to a television 2 and a second recording / reproducing apparatus 20. The first recording / reproducing apparatus 1 is an example of a copy control information determining apparatus according to the present invention, and is an apparatus for recording and reproducing content. The television 2 is a display device that displays output data from the first recording / reproducing device 1. The second recording / reproducing device 20 is a device for recording a signal such as an image output from the first recording / reproducing device 1.

  The first recording / reproducing apparatus 1 operates based on an instruction transmitted from the remote controller 3 operated by the user. The remote controller 3 has a cross key 3a, a reproduction key 3b, and an erase key 3c for accepting user instructions. The operation of the first recording / reproducing apparatus 1 when each key is pressed by the user will be described later.

  The same signal is output from the first recording / reproducing apparatus 1 to the television 2 and the second recording / reproducing apparatus 20. That is, the second recording / reproducing device 20 can record a signal of the same image as the image output from the first recording / reproducing device 1 and displayed on the television 2.

  The television 2 displays a still image thumbnail navigation screen that can display six thumbnails simultaneously by the thumbnail navigation function of the first recording / playback apparatus 1. The thumbnail is an example of a reduced image in the copy control information determination device of the present invention. Further, the image on the still image thumbnail navigation screen is an example of a list display image in the copy control information determination device of the present invention.

  The still image thumbnail navigation screen has six display areas for displaying thumbnails. Thumbnail 201 to thumbnail 206 are displayed in the respective display areas.

  As shown in FIG. 2, the overview of the content viewing system using the first recording / playback apparatus 1 is the same as the overview of the system using the conventional recording / playback apparatus shown in FIG.

  However, the first recording / reproducing apparatus 1 can appropriately perform copyright protection on an image in which a plurality of reduced images indicating each of a plurality of contents are displayed at the same time by a function of a component included therein.

FIG. 3 is a functional block diagram showing a functional configuration of the first recording / reproducing apparatus 1.
As shown in FIG. 3, the first recording / reproducing apparatus 1 includes a receiving unit 4, a control unit 5, a data receiving unit 6, a data processing unit 7, a content storage unit 8, a thumbnail acquisition unit 9, and a list. A generation unit 10, a copy control information determination unit 11, a notification panel generation unit 12, a playback unit 13, an output unit 14, a first output terminal 15, and a second output terminal 16 are provided.

  The receiving unit 4 is a processing unit that receives a user instruction transmitted from the remote controller 3. The control unit 5 is a processing unit that controls the operation of the first recording / reproducing apparatus 1 based on a user instruction or the like. The data receiving unit 6 is a processing unit that receives content data via the antenna 60.

  The data processing unit 7 is a processing unit that manages content data and performs processing such as decoding or encoding as necessary. The content storage unit 8 is a storage device that stores content data. The thumbnail acquisition unit 9 is a processing unit that acquires thumbnail image data and copy control information added to the thumbnail image data from the content data stored in the content storage unit 8.

  The list generation unit 10 is a processing unit that generates an image signal of a still image thumbnail navigation screen that is a list display screen for simultaneously displaying a plurality of thumbnails. The copy control information determination unit 11 is a processing unit that determines the content of copy control information to be added to the image signal of the still image thumbnail navigation screen. The copy control information determination unit 11 is an example of a determination unit in the copy control information determination apparatus of the present invention.

  The notification panel generation unit 12 is a processing unit that generates a signal for displaying a panel for notifying the state of the first recording / reproducing apparatus 1. The reproduction unit 13 is a processing unit that reproduces content. The output unit 14 is an example of an output unit in the copy control information determination device of the present invention, and is a processing unit that outputs an image signal or the like of content. The output unit 14 also realizes a function of acquiring an image signal included in an image signal acquisition unit in the copy control information determination device of the present invention.

  The first output terminal 15 and the second output terminal 16 are terminals for outputting a signal output from the output unit 14 to an external device such as a television. As shown in FIG. 3, the television 2 receives the signal output from the first output terminal 15, and the second recording / reproducing apparatus 20 receives the signal output from the second output terminal 16. The signals output from the first output terminal 15 and the second output terminal 16 are the same.

  With the above configuration, the first recording / reproducing apparatus 1 can perform processing for appropriately protecting the copyright on the still image thumbnail navigation screen image on which a plurality of reduced images are displayed simultaneously.

The still picture thumbnail navigation function will be described in detail with reference to FIGS.
FIG. 4 is a diagram illustrating an example of a data configuration of content data. As shown in FIG. 4, the content data 30 includes entity data 30d and thumbnail data 30a. The entity data 30d is data including information such as an image and sound that is the content entity.

  The thumbnail data 30a is data including thumbnail image data 30b and copy control information 30c. The thumbnail image data 30b is frame still image data extracted from the image data included in the entity data 30d. The copy control information 30c is information for copy control added to the thumbnail image data 30b.

  Note that the copy control information is any one information of “copy allowed”, “copy once”, and “copy not allowed” as described above. As the copy control information, copy control information that is extracted as an image to be a thumbnail and added to the frame in the content entity data is employed.

  Specifically, copy control information is added for each frame in the content entity data, and the copy control information may change as the content is played back.

  FIG. 5 is a diagram showing an example of a change with time of content reproduction of copy control information added to content actual data.

  In the diagram shown in FIG. 5, the horizontal axis represents time (t). Further, the shaded portion indicates that “copying is not possible”, and the rectangle other than the shaded portion indicates that “copying is possible”.

  For example, when the data of the frame at the time point t1 of the substance data of the content is extracted and used as thumbnail image data, the copy control information added to the thumbnail image data is “copy allowed”. Further, when the frame data at the time t2 of the substance data of the content is extracted and used as thumbnail image data, the copy control information added to the thumbnail image data is “non-copyable”.

  Note that it may be determined in advance by the first recording / reproducing apparatus 1 whether the image data at which position of the substance data of the content is used as the thumbnail. Further, it may be determined by user designation. These designation methods are not related to the present invention. In Embodiments 1 and 2 of the present invention, it is preliminarily determined as shown in FIG.

  A plurality of contents are stored in the content storage unit 8 of the first recording / reproducing apparatus 1. Specifically, a plurality of pieces of content data having the data configuration shown in FIG. 4 are stored. That is, a plurality of thumbnail data are also stored.

  FIG. 6 is a diagram illustrating an example of a plurality of thumbnail data stored in the content storage unit 8.

  The thumbnail data 201a to thumbnail data 206a shown in FIG. 6 correspond to the thumbnail 201 to thumbnail 206 shown in FIG. Further, as described above, the thumbnail data 201a to the thumbnail data 206a are stored in the content storage unit 8 together with the substance data of the content corresponding to the thumbnail data.

  Each thumbnail data has thumbnail image data and copy control information. In each copy control information, “permitted” means “copy permitted”, and “impossible” means “copy not permitted”. As shown in FIG. 6, only the thumbnail 204 is “not copyable”, and the other thumbnails are “copyable”.

  When the activation of the still image thumbnail navigation function is instructed by the user's operation of the remote controller 3, the thumbnail acquisition unit 9 acquires thumbnail data 201 a to thumbnail data 206 a from the content storage unit 8. The thumbnail acquisition unit 9 extracts thumbnail image data from each acquired thumbnail data and transmits the thumbnail image data to the list generation unit 10.

  The list generation unit 10 uses the received thumbnail image data to generate an image signal for displaying the still image thumbnail navigation screen on the television 2. The generated image signal is transmitted to the output unit 14.

  The output unit 14 outputs the received image signal to the television 2 via the first output terminal 15 and outputs it to the second recording / reproducing device 20 via the second output terminal 16.

  As a result of the output of the image signal, a still image thumbnail navigation screen is displayed on the television 2 as shown in FIG. On the still image thumbnail navigation screen, six thumbnails 201 to 206 are displayed.

  When the number of contents stored in the content storage unit 8 is 6 or more, the user can display the remaining thumbnails by switching pages or scrolling on the still image thumbnail navigation screen.

  The user can select a thumbnail by operating the cross key 3 a of the remote controller 3. For example, in the still image thumbnail navigation screen shown in FIG. 2, the cursor is placed on the thumbnail 201 to indicate that it is in a selected state.

  When the user presses the playback key 3b of the remote control 3 while any thumbnail is selected on the still image thumbnail navigation screen, a playback instruction is transmitted from the remote control 3 to the first recording / playback apparatus 1. In the first recording / reproducing apparatus 1, the reproduction of the content corresponding to the thumbnail selected by the user is started, and the image signal of the content is output to the television 2 and the second recording / reproducing apparatus 20. On the television 2, full-screen playback of the content is started.

  Specifically, the data processing unit 7 that has received an instruction from the control unit 5 reads the substance data of the content corresponding to the thumbnail selected by the user from the content storage unit 8 and transmits it to the playback unit 13. The reproducing unit 13 reproduces the substance data of the content. The reproduced image data of the actual data is output to the television 2 and the second recording / reproducing device 20 via the output unit 14.

  Note that, when the user presses the delete key 3c of the remote controller 3 while any thumbnail is selected, the content corresponding to the selected thumbnail is deleted from the content storage unit 8.

  Specifically, the data processing unit 7 that has received an instruction from the control unit 5 deletes the content data of the content from the content storage unit 8.

  As described above, the first recording / reproducing apparatus 1 displays a list of thumbnails which are reduced images of still images representing each content by the still image thumbnail navigation function. This function improves the convenience of operations such as content playback and content deletion performed by the user.

  Here, when outputting the image signal of the still image thumbnail navigation screen, the first recording / reproducing apparatus 1 determines copy control information for performing appropriate copyright protection for the still image thumbnail navigation screen. This copy control information will be described below.

  As described above, any one of the copy control information of “Copy permitted”, “Copy once”, and “Copy not permitted” is added to the thumbnail. For these pieces of information, the copyright protection function possessed by the copy control information is strengthened in the order of “copying allowed”, “copying once”, and “copying impossible”. Hereinafter, when the copy control information is “strong”, it means that the copyright protection function of the copy control information is strong.

  The first recording / reproducing apparatus 1 merges the copy control information of the plurality of displayed thumbnails. Merging means selecting the strongest copy control information. That is, the strongest copy control information among the copy control information of the plurality of displayed thumbnails is determined as copy control information to be added to the still image thumbnail navigation screen.

  Specifically, the thumbnail acquisition unit 9 acquires thumbnail data from the content storage unit 8, and acquires copy control information from the thumbnail data. That is, the thumbnail acquisition unit 9 acquires the individual control information in the copy control information determination device of the present invention. The thumbnail acquisition unit 9 transmits the copy control information to the copy control information determination unit 11. The copy control information determination unit 11 determines the strongest copy control information from among the plurality of copy control information received from the thumbnail acquisition unit 9 as copy control information to be added to the image signal on the still image thumbnail navigation screen. That is, the copy control information determination unit 11 determines representative control information in the copy control information determination apparatus of the present invention.

  Further, the determined copy control information is transmitted to the output unit 14. The transmitted copy control information is added to the image signal at the output unit 14 and transmitted to the television 2 and the second recording / reproducing apparatus 20 together with the image signal.

  Hereinafter, an example of a combination of copy control information when the copy control information determination unit 11 determines copy control information to be added to an image signal of the still image thumbnail navigation screen will be described.

  In the screen display example of the television 2 in FIG. 2, the thumbnail 204 has “copy not permitted” as the copy control information, and the copy control information of other thumbnails is “copy permitted” (see FIG. 6). That is, the strongest copy control information is “copy not possible”. Therefore, the copy control information of “copy not possible” is added to the image signal of the still image thumbnail navigation screen and output.

  As a result, the display on the television 2 is not affected, but the second recording / playback apparatus 20 that is the output destination of the image signal cannot record the image signal of the still image thumbnail navigation screen. As a result, it is possible to prevent the thumbnail 204 that is “not copyable” from being copied.

  As an example of a combination of copy control information other than the above, for example, when there are two types of copy control information of a plurality of thumbnails, “copy once” and “copy available”, the strongest copy control information is “one time”. “Copying is possible”. Therefore, the image signal is output with the copy control information of “one copy allowed” added. Further, when all of the copy control information of the plurality of thumbnails is “copy permitted”, the copy control information “copy permitted” is added to the image signal and output.

  That is, the image signal of the still image thumbnail navigation screen output from the first recording / reproducing apparatus 1 is stored in the second recording / reproducing apparatus 20 in the copy added to the plurality of thumbnail image data included in the image signal. This is only when the control information is all “copy permitted”.

  Even when the combination of the copy control information of a plurality of thumbnails is other than the above combination, one copy control information is determined according to the same standard.

  Next, the operation of the first recording / reproducing apparatus 1 when an image is superimposed on the still image thumbnail navigation screen so as to cover the thumbnail will be described with reference to FIG.

  FIG. 7 is a diagram illustrating a screen display example of the television 2 when the notification panel is displayed superimposed on the still image thumbnail screen. The notification panel is an example of a sub image in the copy control information determination device of the present invention.

  In the first recording / reproducing apparatus 1, the notification panel generation unit 12 generates an image signal of a notification panel for notifying a result of a user operation or a warning from a device based on an instruction from the control unit 5. The generated image signal of the notification panel is superimposed on the image signal of the still image thumbnail screen in the output unit 14 and is output to the television 2 and the second recording / reproducing device 20.

  For example, as shown in FIG. 7, in order to notify the user that the scheduled recording start time is approaching, a notification panel displaying “scheduled recording starts” is superimposed on a part of the still image thumbnail screen. Displayed.

  This notification panel prevents the originally displayed thumbnail from being displayed. For example, as shown in FIG. 7, three thumbnails 204 to 206 are obscured. That is, the thumbnail image data included in the image signal output from the first recording / reproducing apparatus 1 in this state is only the three thumbnail image data of the thumbnails 201 to 203.

  The copy control information added to the image signal output in such a screen display state will be described below.

  As described above, the thumbnail image data of the thumbnail hidden by the notification panel is not output. Therefore, the copy control information added to these thumbnail image data need not be reflected in the image signal output.

  Accordingly, the copy control information determination unit 11 merges only the copy control information of the thumbnails 201 to 203. As shown in FIG. 6, all of the copy control information added to the thumbnail image data of the thumbnails 201 to 203 is “copiable”. Accordingly, the copy control information determination unit 11 determines that the copy control information to be added to the image signal on the still image thumbnail navigation screen is “copy permitted”.

  As a result, when the image signal of the notification panel is output, the copy control information added to the image signal of the still image thumbnail navigation screen to be output to the outside changes from “not copyable” to “copy ready”. .

  As described above, the first recording / reproducing apparatus 1 according to the first embodiment can add the copy control information to the image signal for displaying the list of the thumbnails of the contents and output the image signal.

  The copy control information is determined based on copy control information added to a plurality of thumbnail image data included in the output image signal.

  Specifically, the strongest copy control information among a plurality of copy control information is selected and added to the image signal. As a result, when at least one thumbnail image data is “not copyable”, the image signal including the thumbnail image data is “not copyable”. Therefore, thumbnail image data that is “not copyable” is not copied to the output destination device.

  When at least one thumbnail image data is “copy once” and other thumbnail image data is “copy available”, the image signal including the thumbnail image data is “copy once”. Accordingly, the thumbnail image data of “copy once” is permitted to be copied only once to the output destination device.

  As described above, the first recording / reproducing apparatus 1 according to the first embodiment can perform appropriate copyright protection for a list display image in which a plurality of reduced images indicating each of a plurality of contents are simultaneously displayed as a list.

(Embodiment 2)
The second embodiment will be described with reference to FIGS.

  The first recording / reproducing apparatus 1 in the first embodiment displays only thumbnails that are still images as a screen for allowing the user to select content. However, the first recording / reproducing apparatus 1 according to the second embodiment has a function of simultaneously displaying a thumbnail and a reduced moving image that is a reduced moving image. This function of displaying a reduced video is called a reduced video navigation function. The reduced moving image is another example of the reduced image in the copy control information determining apparatus of the present invention, and is a moving image that is reduced and displayed on the screen display.

  FIG. 8 is a diagram showing an overview of the content viewing system when the reduced moving image navigation function is activated in the first recording / playback apparatus 1 according to the second embodiment of the present invention.

  As shown in FIG. 8, a reduced moving image navigation screen is displayed on the television 2 by the reduced moving image navigation function of the first recording / reproducing apparatus 1. The image on the reduced moving image navigation screen is another example of the list display image in the copy control information determination device of the present invention.

  The functional configuration of the first recording / reproducing apparatus 1 of the second embodiment is the same as the functional configuration of the first recording / reproducing apparatus 1 of the first embodiment shown in FIG. However, when the copy control information determination unit 11, the reproduction unit 13, and the output unit 14 perform operations different from those in the first embodiment, the reduced moving image navigation function can be exhibited.

  The reduced video navigation function will be described below. In the following description, it is assumed that content data including thumbnail data 201a to thumbnail data 206a shown in FIG.

  In the system shown in FIG. 8, when activation of reduced video navigation is instructed by a user's operation on the remote controller 3, the thumbnail acquisition unit 9 acquires thumbnail data 201 a to thumbnail data 206 a from the content storage unit 8. The thumbnail acquisition unit 9 extracts thumbnail image data from each acquired thumbnail data and transmits the thumbnail image data to the list generation unit 10.

  The list generation unit 10 uses the received thumbnail image data to generate an image signal for displaying the reduced moving image navigation screen on the television 2. The generated image signal is transmitted to the output unit 14.

  The output unit 14 outputs the received image signal to the television 2 via the first output terminal 15 and outputs it to the second recording / reproducing device 20 via the second output terminal 16.

  By the operation so far, the image signal of the reduced moving image navigation screen with only the thumbnail similar to the still image thumbnail navigation screen described in the description of the first embodiment is output and displayed on the television 2.

  Here, in the initial display state of the reduced moving image navigation screen, the cursor is positioned at the position of the thumbnail 201.

  Based on an instruction from the control unit 5, the data processing unit 7 reads the substance data of the content corresponding to the thumbnail at the position where the cursor is positioned. That is, the entity data corresponding to the thumbnail data 201a is read. The read entity data is transmitted to the reproduction unit 13.

  The reproduction unit 13 reproduces the actual data, converts it into moving image data reduced to a predetermined size, and transmits it to the output unit 14. The output unit 14 superimposes the moving image data on the image signal of the reduced moving image navigation screen and outputs it.

  As a result of the above operation, the reduced moving image 201M that is the moving image of the content corresponding to the thumbnail 201 is reproduced in the same area as the display area of the thumbnail 201. In this case, the audio of the content corresponding to the reduced moving image 201M is output.

  When the number of contents stored in the content storage unit 8 is 6 or more, the user can display the remaining thumbnails and reduced videos by switching pages or scrolling on the reduced video navigation screen. .

  The user can select a thumbnail with the cross key 3 a of the remote controller 3. When any one of the thumbnails is selected, a reduced moving image of the content corresponding to the selected thumbnail is reproduced at the position of the thumbnail.

  When the reproduction key a of the remote controller 3 is pressed in the above selection, a reproduction instruction is transmitted from the remote controller 3 to the first recording / reproducing apparatus 1. In the first recording / reproducing device 1, an image signal for displaying the content selected by the user and subjected to the reproduction of the reduced moving image on the entire screen is generated and output to the television 2 and the second recording / reproducing device 20. . On the television 2, full-screen playback of the content is started.

  Specifically, the data processing unit 7 that has received an instruction from the control unit 5 causes the playback unit 13 to output an image signal for displaying the content selected by the user and subject to playback of the reduced video on the entire screen. Instruct to generate. The reproduction unit 13 generates an image signal for displaying the content on the entire screen, and transmits the image signal to the output unit 14. The output unit 14 outputs the image signal to the television 2 and the second recording / reproducing device 20.

  If any thumbnail is selected and a reduced video is displayed, and the user presses the delete key 3c of the remote control 3, the content corresponding to the selected thumbnail is deleted from the content storage unit 8. The

  Specifically, the data processing unit 7 that has received an instruction from the control unit 5 deletes the content data of the content that is selected by the user and is the target of playback of the reduced video from the content storage unit 8.

  As described above, the first recording / reproducing apparatus 1 displays a list of thumbnails that are reduced images of still images representing each content by the reduced moving image navigation function. Furthermore, the content corresponding to the thumbnail selected by the user is presented to the user as a reduced video. This function improves the convenience of operations such as content playback and content deletion performed by the user.

  Here, the first recording / reproducing apparatus 1 determines copy control information for performing appropriate copyright protection for the reduced moving image navigation screen when outputting the image signal of the reduced moving image navigation screen. This copy control information will be described below.

  As described above, any one of the copy control information of “Copy permitted”, “Copy once”, and “Copy not permitted” is added to the thumbnail. These pieces of information become “strong” as the copy control information in the order of “copying allowed”, “copying once”, and “copying impossible”. The copy control information is acquired by the thumbnail acquisition unit 9 and transmitted to the copy control information determination unit 11.

  Further, the copy control information added to the substance data of the content being reproduced as a reduced moving image changes in real time as the reproduction proceeds. Specifically, as described above, copy control information is added to each frame, which is the minimum unit constituting a moving image. Therefore, as the frames are sequentially played back, the copy control information to be merged is changed. Change.

  FIG. 9 is a diagram illustrating an example of a change over time of copy control information in the reduced moving image 201M. In FIG. 9, the horizontal axis represents time (t).

  In the time-dependent change graph 201e of FIG. 9, the shaded portion indicates “copy not possible”, and the rectangle other than the shaded line indicates “copy allowed”.

  As shown in FIG. 9, the copy control information of the frame at the time point t1 after the reproduction of the reduced moving image 201M is started is “copy OK”. In other words, the reduced moving image 201M at the time when this frame is output is “copiable”. In addition, the copy control information of the frame at the time t2 after the reproduction of the reduced moving image 201M is started is “uncopyable”. That is, the reduced moving image 201M at the time when this frame is output is “uncopyable”.

  The copy control information determination unit 11 of the first recording / playback apparatus 1 acquires copy control information for each frame of the reduced moving image included in the image signal output from the output unit 14 to the outside. That is, in the second embodiment, the copy control information determination unit 11 also functions as a control information acquisition unit in the copy control information determination unit of the present invention.

  Further, the copy control information determination unit 11 outputs the strongest copy control information among the copy control information of each thumbnail and the frame of the reduced video at each time point when the output unit 14 outputs the image signal of the reduced video navigation screen to the outside. The copy control information to be added to the image signal of the reduced moving image navigation screen is determined.

  For example, when all of the copy control information added to the thumbnail image data of the thumbnails 202 to 206 is “copy permitted”, the image signal of the reduced movie navigation screen is displayed when the reduced movie 201M is “not copyable”. Copy control information of “copy not possible” is added. Further, when the reduced moving image 201M is “copy permitted”, the copy control information “copy permitted” is added to the image signal of the reduced moving image navigation screen. That is, copy control information that changes in real time for the reduced moving image 201M is added to the image signal as it is and output.

  Further, when the thumbnail copy control information of the thumbnails 202 to 206 is the combination shown in FIG. 6, the copy control information included in the thumbnail data 204a is “uncopyable”. At any time when the signal is output, copy control information of “copy not possible” is added to the image signal and output.

  Even when the combination of the copy control information of a plurality of thumbnails and one reduced video is other than the above combination, one copy control information is determined according to the same criteria.

  As described above, the copy control information determination unit 11 uses the copy control information to be added to the image signal of the reduced moving image navigation screen, that is, the copy control information of the reduced moving image at the time of determining the representative control information, as the copy control of the reduced moving image. Consider information. Further, the strongest copy control information among the plurality of copy control information including the copy control information of the reduced moving image is determined as the representative control information.

  As for audio, only audio copy control information that changes in real time for a reduced video is added to the audio signal and output.

  Here, it is assumed that the above-described state, that is, the copy control information of the thumbnail 204 is “not copyable”, and is output in addition to the copy control information of “not copyable” to the image signal of the reduced video navigation screen. To do. Under this assumption, the operation of the first recording / playback apparatus 1 when an image is superimposed on the reduced moving image navigation screen so as to cover the thumbnail or the reduced moving image will be described with reference to FIG.

  FIG. 10 is a diagram illustrating a screen display example of the television 2 when the notification panel is displayed superimposed on the reduced moving image navigation screen.

  In the first recording / reproducing apparatus 1, the notification panel generation unit 12 generates an image signal of a notification panel for notifying a result of a user operation or a warning from a device based on an instruction from the control unit 5. The generated image signal of the notification panel is superimposed on the image signal of the reduced moving image navigation screen in the output unit 14 and is output to the television 2 and the second recording / reproducing device 20.

  For example, as shown in FIG. 10, in order to notify the user that the scheduled recording start time is approaching, a notification panel displaying “scheduled recording starts” is displayed superimposed on the reduced video navigation screen. The

  This notification panel prevents the originally displayed thumbnail or reduced video from being displayed. For example, as shown in FIG. 10, the three thumbnails 204 to 206 are obscured. That is, the thumbnail image data included in the image signal output from the first recording / reproducing apparatus 1 in this state is only two thumbnail image data of the thumbnail 202 and the thumbnail 203. In addition to the thumbnail image data, an image signal of the reduced moving image 201M is included.

  As described above, the thumbnail or reduced video data hidden by the notification panel is not output. Therefore, the copy control information added to these hidden thumbnails or reduced moving images need not be reflected in the image signal output.

  Therefore, the copy control information determination unit 11 merges only the copy control information of the thumbnail image 202 and the thumbnail 203 of the copy control information of the image that changes in real time in the reduced moving image 201M. As shown in FIG. 6, both of the copy control information added to the thumbnail image data of the thumbnail 202 and the thumbnail 203 are “copiable”. Therefore, the copy control information determination unit 11 employs copy control information of the reduced moving image 201M that changes in real time as copy control information to be added to the image signal of the still image thumbnail navigation screen.

  As a result, when the image signal of the notification panel is output, the copy control information added to the image signal of the reduced moving image navigation screen to be output to the outside changes from “uncopyable” with the reproduction of the reduced moving image 201M. It will be superseded by copy control information.

  As described above, the first recording / reproducing apparatus 1 according to the second embodiment can add the copy control information to the image signal for displaying the list of thumbnails including the reduced moving image and output the image signal.

  The copy control information is determined based on the copy control information added to the plurality of thumbnail image data included in the output image signal and the copy control information that changes with the reproduction of one reduced moving image.

  Specifically, among the plurality of copy control information and the copy control information that changes with the reproduction of the reduced video, the strongest copy control information at the time of outputting the image signal is selected and added to the image signal. The

  As a result, the image signal at the time when at least one thumbnail image data or reduced moving image is “not copyable” becomes “not copyable”. Therefore, thumbnail image data or reduced video that is “not copyable” is not copied to the output destination device.

  In addition, when at least one thumbnail image data or reduced video is “copy once” and other thumbnail image data or reduced video is “copy permitted”, the image signal including the thumbnail image data or reduced video is “Copy once”. Therefore, the thumbnail image data or reduced video that is “one copy” is permitted to be copied only once to the output destination device. Note that the audio signal associated with the reproduction of the reduced video is output as it is when not affected by the display of the notification panel.

  As described above, the first recording / reproducing apparatus 1 according to the second embodiment can appropriately protect the copyright on a list display image in which a plurality of reduced images indicating each of a plurality of contents are simultaneously displayed as a list.

  In the reduced moving image navigation screen described above, only the thumbnail selected by the user is the target of the reduced moving image. However, a plurality of reduced moving images may be reproduced on the reduced moving image navigation screen.

  For example, six reduced videos may be played back simultaneously, three reduced videos may be played back simultaneously, and the remaining three may be thumbnails that are still images.

  As described above, even when a plurality of reduced moving images are simultaneously reproduced, the first recording / reproducing apparatus 1 can appropriately determine the copy control information to be added to the image signal. Specifically, the copy control information determination unit 11 reads copy control information that changes in real time from the data of each reduced moving image input from the reproduction unit 13 to the output unit 14. Further, the plurality of read copy control information are merged, the strongest copy control information is selected, and transmitted to the output unit 14. The output unit 14 adds the copy control information transmitted from the copy control information determination unit 11 to the image signal of the reduced moving image navigation screen including a plurality of reduced moving images, and outputs it to the television 2 and the second recording / reproducing device 20.

  FIG. 11 is a diagram illustrating an example of a change over time in copy control information of each reduced moving image when six reduced moving images are simultaneously reproduced.

  In the reduced moving image navigation screen shown in FIG. 8, it is assumed that, in addition to the reduced moving image 201M, the reduced moving image 202M to the reduced moving image 206M corresponding to the thumbnails 202 to 206 are reproduced.

  The temporal change graph 201e to the temporal change graph 206e shown in FIG. 11 correspond to the reduced moving image 201M to the reduced moving image 206M, respectively. Further, in each time-dependent change graph, the hatched portion indicates that “copying is not possible”, and the portion marked with a dot indicates that “one copy”. A rectangle other than the shaded portion and the portion with a dot indicates that “copying is possible”.

  For example, all the copy control information is “copiable” at the time t1 after the playback of each reduced video is started. Therefore, at this point, the copy control information of “Copy Allowed” is added to the image signal of the reduced moving image navigation screen and output.

  Also, at the time t2 since the start of the playback of each reduced video, the copy control information of the reduced video 202M, the reduced video 204M, and the reduced video 205M is “copy OK”, but other copy control information “Cannot copy”. Therefore, at this time, copy control information of “copy not possible” is added to the image signal of the reduced moving image navigation screen and output.

  Further, at the time t3 after the start of the reproduction of each reduced moving image, the copy control information other than the copy control information of the reduced moving image 206M is “copy OK”. Further, the copy control information of the reduced moving image 206M is “one copy”. Therefore, at this time, the copy control information of “one copy” is added to the image signal of the reduced moving image navigation screen and output.

  As described above, even when a plurality of reduced moving images are simultaneously reproduced, the first recording / reproducing apparatus 1 can output an image signal to which appropriate copy control information is added to the outside.

  In the first and second embodiments, when the notification panel is displayed so as to be superimposed on the display screen, only the copy control information of the thumbnail and the reduced video currently output without being hidden by the notification panel is to be merged. did.

  Similarly, when scrolling the screen display, the copy control information of the thumbnail or reduced video displayed on the television 2 may be merged to determine copy control information to be added to the image signal.

  That is, the copy control information to be added to the image signal may be determined according to the copy control information of the thumbnail or reduced moving image data substantially included in the image signal output to the outside.

  The image signal that is scrolled by the user's operation is generated and output by the first recording / reproducing apparatus 1, and it is possible to capture which thumbnail and reduced video are output to the outside.

  For example, the copy control information determination unit 11 may acquire information about which thumbnails and reduced moving images are output from the image signal output from the output unit 14. Thereby, even for an image that is scrolled by a user operation, copy control information to be added to the image signal at that time can be determined in real time.

  In the first and second embodiments, when the notification panel is displayed so as to be superimposed on the display screen, thumbnails or reduced video copy control information, which is entirely hidden by the notification panel, is added to the image signal. Suppose that you want to exclude from the merge target to determine the copy control information to be.

  However, even when a part of the thumbnail or reduced video is hidden by the notification panel, the copy control information of the thumbnail or reduced video may be excluded from the merge target. Whether or not to be merged may be determined based on the ratio displayed without being hidden by the notification panel.

  For example, when the ratio of the area that is not hidden by the notification panel is 20% or more in the entire display area of the thumbnail, it may be provided that the copy control information of the thumbnail is to be merged.

  Further, when the notification panel has transparency, the image displayed under the notification panel increases in proportion to being displayed in proportion to the transparency of the notification panel. Therefore, if the image underneath is not completely invisible, it may be determined whether or not to be merged according to the transparency of the notification panel.

  For example, when the transparency of the notification panel is 50% or more, a rule may be provided in which the copy control information of the thumbnail below it is to be merged.

  Further, it may be determined whether or not the thumbnail or the reduced moving image is to be merged by simultaneously considering the ratio at which the thumbnail or the reduced moving image is displayed without being hidden by the reduction notification panel and the transparency of the notification panel.

  The ratio of the area that is not hidden by the notification panel and the transparency of the notification panel, which are the criteria for merging the copy control information of a thumbnail or reduced video, are the content of the content that contains the thumbnail or reduced video. The copyright holder may decide. In this case, information such as the above-mentioned ratio determined by the copyright holder is added to the content data, and the copy control information determination unit 11 merges the copy control information of the thumbnail or reduced video based on the information. What is necessary is just to determine whether it makes object.

  In this way, by determining the copy control information to be added to the output image signal according to the substantial display form of the reduced image that is a thumbnail or reduced video, for the image signal including the reduced image data, More substantial copyright protection can be achieved.

  In the first recording / reproducing apparatus 1, the thumbnail acquisition unit 9 extracts thumbnail image data (see FIG. 4) included in advance in the content data. However, when outputting the image signal of the still image thumbnail navigation screen or the reduced video navigation screen, the still image data may be extracted from the substance data of the content and the still image may be output to the outside.

  For example, the thumbnail acquisition unit 9 may extract a still image that is 5 seconds after the start of reproduction of each content from the actual data of each content. Further, the position from which each still image is extracted in each content data may be defined by a predetermined time from the start of reproduction as described above, or may be specified for each content.

  As described above, when extracting still image data to be a thumbnail from the entity data every time a thumbnail is output, the copy control information corresponding to the position of the still image data may be extracted together. For example, in FIG. 5, if it is still image data at the time t1 from the start of reproduction, it will be extracted together with the copy control information of “Copy Allowed”.

  In this way, even if the content handled by the first recording / playback apparatus 1 is content in a data format that does not have thumbnail image data and its copy control information separately from the actual data of the content, the image data included in the content Can be properly protected.

  In addition, when the moving image content is data compressed by the MPEG (Moving Picture Experts Group) method and the frame extracted as a thumbnail is a P picture or a B picture, for example, even if the previous I picture is extracted as a thumbnail Good.

  Further, as shown in FIG. 5 and the like, it is assumed that copy control information is added for each frame constituting the moving image in the content handled by the first recording / reproducing apparatus 1. However, the copy control information may not be added for each frame. For example, it may be added in units of blocks composed of a plurality of frames. Further, in content that does not need to change the copy control information in real time with reproduction, only one copy control information may be added to the content. That is, it is only necessary that the copy control information for each image included in the reduced moving image can be specified.

  In any of these cases, for example, the thumbnail acquisition unit 9 may specify copy control information corresponding to a frame acquired as a thumbnail according to the unit to which the copy control information is added. Further, for example, the copy control information determination unit 11 may specify the copy control information corresponding to each frame of the reduced moving image output to the outside by the output unit 14 according to the unit to which the copy control information is added.

  In other words, the first recording / reproducing apparatus 1 according to the first and second embodiments is applicable to any content that can specify the copy control information for each image data included in the entity data regardless of the unit of data to which the copy control information is added. Can appropriately protect the copyright of the image data included in these contents.

  Further, the content handled by the first recording / reproducing apparatus 1 is assumed to be moving image content. However, the content handled by the first recording / reproducing apparatus 1 may be content including only still images. Any content can be used as long as it can acquire the copy control information of the image when extracting the image from the content.

  Further, the output unit 14 of the first recording / reproducing apparatus 1 adds the copy control information to the output image signal and outputs it. However, it does not have to be added and output, and at least the output image signal and the copy control information need only be associated with each other so that they can be synchronized. In this case, for example, an external device that receives the associated image signal and copy control information may associate the image signal with the copy control information.

  Further, the present invention has been described using a recording / reproducing apparatus for recording and reproducing contents as an example of the copy control information determining apparatus of the present invention. However, the copy control information determination apparatus of the present invention can be implemented in forms other than the content recording / playback apparatus.

  For example, the copy control information determination apparatus of the present invention may be implemented as a set-top box that is a device that provides an additional function by connecting to a home television, such as a control box that receives a broadcast program of cable television.

  Further, the copy control information determination device of the present invention may not be a mode of reading content data from a storage device provided therein, like the first recording / reproducing device 1 in the first and second embodiments. For example, the present invention may be implemented as a playback device that reads content data from a storage medium such as a DVD, a Blu-ray disc, or a semiconductor memory.

  That is, the copy control information determination device of the present invention has a function of acquiring copy control information of still images or moving images included in each content from a plurality of content data. Further, it has a function of determining copy control information to be added to a signal of an image including a plurality of reduced images of still images or moving images based on the plurality of acquired copy control information. Further, it has a function of outputting the determined copy control information. With these functions, appropriate copyright protection can be performed on an image on which a plurality of reduced images representing each of a plurality of contents are displayed simultaneously.

  Therefore, the copy control information determination device of the present invention can be implemented even in a device that does not have content itself, such as the above-described set-top box or storage medium playback device. In this case, the data format of the content may be a data format that the thumbnail image data has separately from the entity data as described above, and is a data format in which it is necessary to extract thumbnail image data from the entity data. May be.

  Further, the copy control information is assumed to be any one of “copy permitted”, “single copy permitted”, and “copy not permitted”. However, information other than the information described above may be used as long as it is information regarding copy restrictions. In this case, the order of strength may be specified based on the copyright protection function of the copy control information. Further, the copy control information determination unit 11 may store a plurality of pieces of copy control information and information regarding their rank. The copy control information determination unit 11 may determine the representative control information based on the information.

  In addition, when the copy control information is subjected to conditions such as a time restriction or a restriction for each type of playback device, for example, the copy control information determination unit 11 considers the conditions such as the date and time or the type of playback device. It is only necessary to acquire information for performing and determine representative control information.

  That is, the copy control information determination unit may determine the representative control information in consideration of necessary conditions based on the copy control information of the reduced images included in the list display image.

  By doing so, the first recording / reproducing apparatus 1 can be appropriately operated even when the copyright protection of the content, the standard regarding the data format, or the like changes depending on the region or the era.

  In addition, when copy control information of a reduced image that is a thumbnail or a reduced video cannot be specified, such as when the content data does not include copy control information at all, for example, the copy control information of the reduced image acquired from the content is set to “ It may be handled as “copy not possible”.

  By doing so, it is possible to provide the first recording / reproducing apparatus 1 that operates safely from the viewpoint of copyright protection even for content that cannot be specified as to whether or not copying is possible.

  Further, the content data processed by the first recording / reproducing apparatus 1 may not be digital data. For example, in analog broadcasting, copy control information may be embedded and transmitted during a broadcast wave blanking period. In this case, for example, the data processing unit 7 or the thumbnail acquisition unit 9 may extract the copy control information embedded in the broadcast wave and associate it with the image data included in the broadcast wave. The same applies when copy control information is added as a digital watermark to a broadcast wave.

  That is, the content data may be digital data or analog data as long as copy control information relating to an image to be received and output can be acquired.

  Thus, by making the first recording / reproducing apparatus 1 correspond to the analog content data, it is possible to appropriately protect the copyright even for the image of the list of reduced images obtained from the analog content data.

  In the first and second embodiments, the case where the number of thumbnails and reduced moving images simultaneously displayed on the television 2 is six has been described. However, it is not limited to this number, and the copyright of the image output to the outside can be protected in an arbitrary number.

  For example, even when only one thumbnail or only one reduced video is displayed, the copy control information is determined according to the rules shown in the first and second embodiments of the present invention. Specifically, copy control information for one thumbnail displayed or copy control information for one reduced moving image that changes in real time is added to the image signal output.

  For example, even when six or more thumbnails are displayed at the same time, the copy control information determination unit 11 may merge the copy control information of the thumbnails.

  By doing so, for example, even in a recording / reproducing apparatus having a specification capable of changing the number of thumbnails and reduced moving images that can be displayed on the list by the user, the copyright of the images on the list can be protected.

  Also, some or all of the components of the first recording / reproducing apparatus 1 shown in FIG. 3 may be realized as an LSI, which is an integrated circuit, by combining the components. These may be individually made into one chip, or may be made into one chip so as to include some or all of the components.

  FIG. 12 is a diagram showing an example of a range of components realized as an integrated circuit in the first recording / reproducing apparatus 1 of the first and second embodiments. A range surrounded by a dotted line in the figure shows an example of a range of components realized as an integrated circuit. That is, the copy control information determination apparatus of the present invention may be realized as an integrated circuit such as an LSI.

  The copy control information determination device of the present invention can determine and output appropriate copy control information when outputting an image signal for displaying a plurality of thumbnails or reduced moving images on one screen. Therefore, it is most suitable for a recording / reproducing apparatus or a set top box that requires a function relating to copyright protection.

  The present invention relates to a copy control information determining apparatus that determines copy control information for controlling copying of an image.

  In recent years, devices that record and reproduce AV (Audio Visual) content on a DVD (Digital Versatile Disc) or HDD (Hard Disk Drive) have appeared. Such a device can record a large amount of content. For this reason, it is important to have a function of presenting a list of contents to the user in an easy-to-understand manner and selecting which contents to reproduce when reproducing the recorded contents. One example of this function is a still image thumbnail navigation function. The still image thumbnail navigation function is a function for displaying a plurality of thumbnails, which are reduced images of still images representing content, on one screen.

  FIG. 1 is a diagram showing an overview of a content viewing system when a still image thumbnail navigation function is activated in a conventional recording / playback apparatus. The operation of the conventional recording / reproducing apparatus will be described below with reference to FIG. The content viewing system is a system for allowing a user to view content using a recording / playback apparatus.

  In the system shown in FIG. 1, a first recording / reproducing device 21 which is a conventional recording / reproducing device is connected to a television 2 and a second recording / reproducing device 20. The first recording / reproducing device 21 is a device that records and reproduces content. The television 2 is a display device for displaying output data from the first recording / reproducing device 21. The second recording / reproducing device 20 is a device for recording a signal such as an image output from the first recording / reproducing device 21. The first recording / reproducing device 21 operates based on an instruction transmitted from the remote controller 22 operated by the user.

  The same signal is output from the first recording / reproducing device 21 to the television 2 and the second recording / reproducing device 20. That is, the second recording / reproducing device 20 can record a signal of the same image as the image output from the first recording / reproducing device 21 and displayed on the television 2.

  The first recording / reproducing apparatus 21 includes a storage medium for storing content, and the storage medium stores a plurality of contents. Then, thumbnail image data, which is a reduced image of a still image representing each content, is stored in a separate area from the content.

  It is possible to automatically determine at which position in the content the image data is the thumbnail indicating the content, or the user can specify.

  Further, the storage medium in the first recording / reproducing apparatus 21 stores copy control information, which is information for protecting the copyright of the image data, together with the image data of each thumbnail. The copy control information includes “copy permitted”, “copy once”, and “copy not permitted”. As the copy control information, copy control information added to a frame extracted as a thumbnail in the content entity data is employed. A frame is the smallest unit that constitutes a moving image.

  When the activation of the still image thumbnail navigation function is instructed by the user's operation of the remote controller 22, the first recording / reproducing device 21 reads and reproduces only the thumbnail data from its own storage medium, and causes the television 2 to display a list. By this operation, as shown in FIG. 1, a still image thumbnail navigation screen which is a thumbnail list display screen is displayed on the television 2.

  Six thumbnails are displayed simultaneously. When there are more than six thumbnails to be displayed, the user sequentially displays the remaining thumbnails by switching pages or scrolling the list.

  The user can select a thumbnail with the cross key 22 a of the remote controller 22. For example, in FIG. 1, the cursor is placed on the thumbnail 201, indicating that the thumbnail 201 is selected. Note that the cursor is represented by a thick line surrounding the thumbnail in the figure.

  When one of the thumbnails is selected, the playback key 22b of the remote controller 22 is pressed to start full-screen playback of the content corresponding to the selected thumbnail. Further, when the delete key 22c is pressed, the content corresponding to the selected thumbnail is deleted.

  As described above, the still image thumbnail navigation function is a function for displaying a list of still image thumbnails representing content and enhancing the convenience of operations such as user playback and content deletion.

In addition, when writing still image data on a DVD audio disc, a method is disclosed in which corresponding copy control information is appended to each still image and recorded (see, for example, Patent Document 1).
JP 2001-78140 A

  As described above, copy control information is added to each thumbnail. Accordingly, thumbnails to which different copy control information is added may be displayed in the list display screen.

  For example, it is assumed that the copy control information of the thumbnail 204 shown in FIG. 1 is “copy not possible” and the copy control information of other thumbnails is “copy available”.

  Under this assumption, there are two types of copy control information added to the thumbnails present on one list display screen: “copy permitted” and “copy not permitted”. In this case, the conventional recording / reproducing apparatus cannot add effective copy control information to the image signal for displaying the list display screen.

  Therefore, for example, the second recording / reproducing apparatus 20 can record the display data of the list display screen even though the thumbnail of “non-copyable” is displayed on the list display screen shown in FIG. .

  That is, in the conventional recording / reproducing apparatus, when an image in which a plurality of thumbnails are displayed in a list is output, the copy control information of each thumbnail is not considered, and the image is freely copied. It becomes. If the list display image is uniformly prohibited from being copied in order to prevent free copying, the user cannot copy the list display image even when all thumbnails can be copied.

  In view of the above problems, the present invention provides a copy control information determination device for appropriately protecting copyright on a list display image in which a plurality of reduced images indicating each of a plurality of contents are displayed in a list simultaneously. With the goal.

  The copy control information determination device according to the present invention includes a control information acquisition unit that acquires individual control information that is copy control information for each of a plurality of reduced images displayed in a list, and a plurality of individual information acquired by the control information acquisition unit. Based on the control information, determining means for determining representative control information which is copy control information of a list display image in which the plurality of reduced images are displayed in a list; and the representative control information determined by the determining means is displayed in the list Output means for outputting in association with the image.

  As described above, the copy control information determination apparatus according to the present invention determines copy control information that takes into account the individual control information of each reduced image as copy control information of a list display image in which a plurality of reduced images are displayed in a list simultaneously. To do. Further, the determined copy control information is output in association with the list display image. As a result, it is possible to appropriately protect the copyright on the list display image.

  According to the present invention, for example, an appropriate copyright is applied to a list display image of reduced images that is output from a recording / playback apparatus and allows a user to select content to be played back from a plurality of content. It is possible to provide a copy control information determination device for performing protection.

  Furthermore, the present invention can be realized as a method using the characteristic components of the copy control information determining apparatus of the present invention as steps, a program including these steps, or a CD- It can be realized as a storage medium such as a ROM or an integrated circuit. The program can also be distributed via a transmission medium such as a communication network.

  Hereinafter, a recording / reproducing apparatus according to an embodiment of the present invention will be described with reference to the accompanying drawings.

(Embodiment 1)
FIG. 2 is a diagram showing an overview of the content viewing system when the still image thumbnail navigation function is activated in the first recording / reproducing apparatus 1 of the first embodiment of the present invention.

  In the system shown in FIG. 2, the first recording / reproducing apparatus 1 is connected to a television 2 and a second recording / reproducing apparatus 20. The first recording / reproducing apparatus 1 is an example of a copy control information determining apparatus according to the present invention, and is an apparatus for recording and reproducing content. The television 2 is a display device that displays output data from the first recording / reproducing device 1. The second recording / reproducing device 20 is a device for recording a signal such as an image output from the first recording / reproducing device 1.

  The first recording / reproducing apparatus 1 operates based on an instruction transmitted from the remote controller 3 operated by the user. The remote controller 3 has a cross key 3a, a reproduction key 3b, and an erase key 3c for accepting user instructions. The operation of the first recording / reproducing apparatus 1 when each key is pressed by the user will be described later.

  The same signal is output from the first recording / reproducing apparatus 1 to the television 2 and the second recording / reproducing apparatus 20. That is, the second recording / reproducing device 20 can record a signal of the same image as the image output from the first recording / reproducing device 1 and displayed on the television 2.

  The television 2 displays a still image thumbnail navigation screen that can display six thumbnails simultaneously by the thumbnail navigation function of the first recording / playback apparatus 1. The thumbnail is an example of a reduced image in the copy control information determination device of the present invention. Further, the image on the still image thumbnail navigation screen is an example of a list display image in the copy control information determination device of the present invention.

  The still image thumbnail navigation screen has six display areas for displaying thumbnails. Thumbnail 201 to thumbnail 206 are displayed in the respective display areas.

  As shown in FIG. 2, the overview of the content viewing system using the first recording / playback apparatus 1 is the same as the overview of the system using the conventional recording / playback apparatus shown in FIG.

  However, the first recording / reproducing apparatus 1 can appropriately perform copyright protection on an image in which a plurality of reduced images indicating each of a plurality of contents are displayed at the same time by a function of a component included therein.

FIG. 3 is a functional block diagram showing a functional configuration of the first recording / reproducing apparatus 1.
As shown in FIG. 3, the first recording / reproducing apparatus 1 includes a receiving unit 4, a control unit 5, a data receiving unit 6, a data processing unit 7, a content storage unit 8, a thumbnail acquisition unit 9, and a list. A generation unit 10, a copy control information determination unit 11, a notification panel generation unit 12, a playback unit 13, an output unit 14, a first output terminal 15, and a second output terminal 16 are provided.

  The receiving unit 4 is a processing unit that receives a user instruction transmitted from the remote controller 3. The control unit 5 is a processing unit that controls the operation of the first recording / reproducing apparatus 1 based on a user instruction or the like. The data receiving unit 6 is a processing unit that receives content data via the antenna 60.

  The data processing unit 7 is a processing unit that manages content data and performs processing such as decoding or encoding as necessary. The content storage unit 8 is a storage device that stores content data. The thumbnail acquisition unit 9 is a processing unit that acquires thumbnail image data and copy control information added to the thumbnail image data from the content data stored in the content storage unit 8.

  The list generation unit 10 is a processing unit that generates an image signal of a still image thumbnail navigation screen that is a list display screen for simultaneously displaying a plurality of thumbnails. The copy control information determination unit 11 is a processing unit that determines the content of copy control information to be added to the image signal of the still image thumbnail navigation screen. The copy control information determination unit 11 is an example of a determination unit in the copy control information determination apparatus of the present invention.

  The notification panel generation unit 12 is a processing unit that generates a signal for displaying a panel for notifying the state of the first recording / reproducing apparatus 1. The reproduction unit 13 is a processing unit that reproduces content. The output unit 14 is an example of an output unit in the copy control information determination device of the present invention, and is a processing unit that outputs an image signal or the like of content. The output unit 14 also realizes a function of acquiring an image signal included in an image signal acquisition unit in the copy control information determination device of the present invention.

  The first output terminal 15 and the second output terminal 16 are terminals for outputting a signal output from the output unit 14 to an external device such as a television. As shown in FIG. 3, the television 2 receives the signal output from the first output terminal 15, and the second recording / reproducing apparatus 20 receives the signal output from the second output terminal 16. The signals output from the first output terminal 15 and the second output terminal 16 are the same.

  With the above configuration, the first recording / reproducing apparatus 1 can perform processing for appropriately protecting the copyright on the still image thumbnail navigation screen image on which a plurality of reduced images are displayed simultaneously.

The still picture thumbnail navigation function will be described in detail with reference to FIGS.
FIG. 4 is a diagram illustrating an example of a data configuration of content data. As shown in FIG. 4, the content data 30 includes entity data 30d and thumbnail data 30a. The entity data 30d is data including information such as an image and sound that is the content entity.

  The thumbnail data 30a is data including thumbnail image data 30b and copy control information 30c. The thumbnail image data 30b is frame still image data extracted from the image data included in the entity data 30d. The copy control information 30c is information for copy control added to the thumbnail image data 30b.

  Note that the copy control information is any one information of “copy allowed”, “copy once”, and “copy not allowed” as described above. As the copy control information, copy control information that is extracted as an image to be a thumbnail and added to the frame in the content entity data is employed.

  Specifically, copy control information is added for each frame in the content entity data, and the copy control information may change as the content is played back.

  FIG. 5 is a diagram showing an example of a change with time of content reproduction of copy control information added to content actual data.

  In the diagram shown in FIG. 5, the horizontal axis represents time (t). Further, the shaded portion indicates that “copying is not possible”, and the rectangle other than the shaded portion indicates that “copying is possible”.

  For example, when the data of the frame at the time point t1 of the substance data of the content is extracted and used as thumbnail image data, the copy control information added to the thumbnail image data is “copy allowed”. Further, when the frame data at the time t2 of the substance data of the content is extracted and used as thumbnail image data, the copy control information added to the thumbnail image data is “non-copyable”.

  Note that it may be determined in advance by the first recording / reproducing apparatus 1 whether the image data at which position of the substance data of the content is used as the thumbnail. Further, it may be determined by user designation. These designation methods are not related to the present invention. In Embodiments 1 and 2 of the present invention, it is preliminarily determined as shown in FIG.

  A plurality of contents are stored in the content storage unit 8 of the first recording / reproducing apparatus 1. Specifically, a plurality of pieces of content data having the data configuration shown in FIG. 4 are stored. That is, a plurality of thumbnail data are also stored.

  FIG. 6 is a diagram illustrating an example of a plurality of thumbnail data stored in the content storage unit 8.

  The thumbnail data 201a to thumbnail data 206a shown in FIG. 6 correspond to the thumbnail 201 to thumbnail 206 shown in FIG. Further, as described above, the thumbnail data 201a to the thumbnail data 206a are stored in the content storage unit 8 together with the substance data of the content corresponding to the thumbnail data.

  Each thumbnail data has thumbnail image data and copy control information. In each copy control information, “permitted” means “copy permitted”, and “impossible” means “copy not permitted”. As shown in FIG. 6, only the thumbnail 204 is “not copyable”, and the other thumbnails are “copyable”.

  When the activation of the still image thumbnail navigation function is instructed by the user's operation of the remote controller 3, the thumbnail acquisition unit 9 acquires thumbnail data 201 a to thumbnail data 206 a from the content storage unit 8. The thumbnail acquisition unit 9 extracts thumbnail image data from each acquired thumbnail data and transmits the thumbnail image data to the list generation unit 10.

  The list generation unit 10 uses the received thumbnail image data to generate an image signal for displaying the still image thumbnail navigation screen on the television 2. The generated image signal is transmitted to the output unit 14.

  The output unit 14 outputs the received image signal to the television 2 via the first output terminal 15 and outputs it to the second recording / reproducing device 20 via the second output terminal 16.

  As a result of the output of the image signal, a still image thumbnail navigation screen is displayed on the television 2 as shown in FIG. On the still image thumbnail navigation screen, six thumbnails 201 to 206 are displayed.

  When the number of contents stored in the content storage unit 8 is 6 or more, the user can display the remaining thumbnails by switching pages or scrolling on the still image thumbnail navigation screen.

  The user can select a thumbnail by operating the cross key 3 a of the remote controller 3. For example, in the still image thumbnail navigation screen shown in FIG. 2, the cursor is placed on the thumbnail 201 to indicate that it is in a selected state.

  When the user presses the playback key 3b of the remote control 3 while any thumbnail is selected on the still image thumbnail navigation screen, a playback instruction is transmitted from the remote control 3 to the first recording / playback apparatus 1. In the first recording / reproducing apparatus 1, the reproduction of the content corresponding to the thumbnail selected by the user is started, and the image signal of the content is output to the television 2 and the second recording / reproducing apparatus 20. On the television 2, full-screen playback of the content is started.

  Specifically, the data processing unit 7 that has received an instruction from the control unit 5 reads the substance data of the content corresponding to the thumbnail selected by the user from the content storage unit 8 and transmits it to the playback unit 13. The reproducing unit 13 reproduces the substance data of the content. The reproduced image data of the actual data is output to the television 2 and the second recording / reproducing device 20 via the output unit 14.

  Note that, when the user presses the delete key 3c of the remote controller 3 while any thumbnail is selected, the content corresponding to the selected thumbnail is deleted from the content storage unit 8.

  Specifically, the data processing unit 7 that has received an instruction from the control unit 5 deletes the content data of the content from the content storage unit 8.

  As described above, the first recording / reproducing apparatus 1 displays a list of thumbnails which are reduced images of still images representing each content by the still image thumbnail navigation function. This function improves the convenience of operations such as content playback and content deletion performed by the user.

  Here, when outputting the image signal of the still image thumbnail navigation screen, the first recording / reproducing apparatus 1 determines copy control information for performing appropriate copyright protection for the still image thumbnail navigation screen. This copy control information will be described below.

  As described above, any one of the copy control information of “Copy permitted”, “Copy once”, and “Copy not permitted” is added to the thumbnail. For these pieces of information, the copyright protection function possessed by the copy control information is strengthened in the order of “copying allowed”, “copying once”, and “copying impossible”. Hereinafter, when the copy control information is “strong”, it means that the copyright protection function of the copy control information is strong.

  The first recording / reproducing apparatus 1 merges the copy control information of the plurality of displayed thumbnails. Merging means selecting the strongest copy control information. That is, the strongest copy control information among the copy control information of the plurality of displayed thumbnails is determined as copy control information to be added to the still image thumbnail navigation screen.

  Specifically, the thumbnail acquisition unit 9 acquires thumbnail data from the content storage unit 8, and acquires copy control information from the thumbnail data. That is, the thumbnail acquisition unit 9 acquires the individual control information in the copy control information determination device of the present invention. The thumbnail acquisition unit 9 transmits the copy control information to the copy control information determination unit 11. The copy control information determination unit 11 determines the strongest copy control information from among the plurality of copy control information received from the thumbnail acquisition unit 9 as copy control information to be added to the image signal on the still image thumbnail navigation screen. That is, the copy control information determination unit 11 determines representative control information in the copy control information determination apparatus of the present invention.

  Further, the determined copy control information is transmitted to the output unit 14. The transmitted copy control information is added to the image signal at the output unit 14 and transmitted to the television 2 and the second recording / reproducing apparatus 20 together with the image signal.

  Hereinafter, an example of a combination of copy control information when the copy control information determination unit 11 determines copy control information to be added to an image signal of the still image thumbnail navigation screen will be described.

  In the screen display example of the television 2 in FIG. 2, the thumbnail 204 has “copy not permitted” as the copy control information, and the copy control information of other thumbnails is “copy permitted” (see FIG. 6). That is, the strongest copy control information is “copy not possible”. Therefore, the copy control information of “copy not possible” is added to the image signal of the still image thumbnail navigation screen and output.

  As a result, the display on the television 2 is not affected, but the second recording / playback apparatus 20 that is the output destination of the image signal cannot record the image signal of the still image thumbnail navigation screen. As a result, it is possible to prevent the thumbnail 204 that is “not copyable” from being copied.

  As an example of a combination of copy control information other than the above, for example, when there are two types of copy control information of a plurality of thumbnails, “copy once” and “copy available”, the strongest copy control information is “one time”. “Copying is possible”. Therefore, the image signal is output with the copy control information of “one copy allowed” added. Further, when all of the copy control information of the plurality of thumbnails is “copy permitted”, the copy control information “copy permitted” is added to the image signal and output.

  That is, the image signal of the still image thumbnail navigation screen output from the first recording / reproducing apparatus 1 is stored in the second recording / reproducing apparatus 20 in the copy added to the plurality of thumbnail image data included in the image signal. This is only when the control information is all “copy permitted”.

  Even when the combination of the copy control information of a plurality of thumbnails is other than the above combination, one copy control information is determined according to the same standard.

  Next, the operation of the first recording / reproducing apparatus 1 when an image is superimposed on the still image thumbnail navigation screen so as to cover the thumbnail will be described with reference to FIG.

  FIG. 7 is a diagram illustrating a screen display example of the television 2 when the notification panel is displayed superimposed on the still image thumbnail screen. The notification panel is an example of a sub image in the copy control information determination device of the present invention.

  In the first recording / reproducing apparatus 1, the notification panel generation unit 12 generates an image signal of a notification panel for notifying a result of a user operation or a warning from a device based on an instruction from the control unit 5. The generated image signal of the notification panel is superimposed on the image signal of the still image thumbnail screen in the output unit 14 and is output to the television 2 and the second recording / reproducing device 20.

  For example, as shown in FIG. 7, in order to notify the user that the scheduled recording start time is approaching, a notification panel displaying “scheduled recording starts” is superimposed on a part of the still image thumbnail screen. Displayed.

  This notification panel prevents the originally displayed thumbnail from being displayed. For example, as shown in FIG. 7, three thumbnails 204 to 206 are obscured. That is, the thumbnail image data included in the image signal output from the first recording / reproducing apparatus 1 in this state is only the three thumbnail image data of the thumbnails 201 to 203.

  The copy control information added to the image signal output in such a screen display state will be described below.

  As described above, the thumbnail image data of the thumbnail hidden by the notification panel is not output. Therefore, the copy control information added to these thumbnail image data need not be reflected in the image signal output.

  Accordingly, the copy control information determination unit 11 merges only the copy control information of the thumbnails 201 to 203. As shown in FIG. 6, all of the copy control information added to the thumbnail image data of the thumbnails 201 to 203 is “copiable”. Accordingly, the copy control information determination unit 11 determines that the copy control information to be added to the image signal on the still image thumbnail navigation screen is “copy permitted”.

  As a result, when the image signal of the notification panel is output, the copy control information added to the image signal of the still image thumbnail navigation screen to be output to the outside changes from “not copyable” to “copy ready”. .

  As described above, the first recording / reproducing apparatus 1 according to the first embodiment can add the copy control information to the image signal for displaying the list of the thumbnails of the contents and output the image signal.

  The copy control information is determined based on copy control information added to a plurality of thumbnail image data included in the output image signal.

  Specifically, the strongest copy control information among a plurality of copy control information is selected and added to the image signal. As a result, when at least one thumbnail image data is “not copyable”, the image signal including the thumbnail image data is “not copyable”. Therefore, thumbnail image data that is “not copyable” is not copied to the output destination device.

  When at least one thumbnail image data is “copy once” and other thumbnail image data is “copy available”, the image signal including the thumbnail image data is “copy once”. Accordingly, the thumbnail image data of “copy once” is permitted to be copied only once to the output destination device.

  As described above, the first recording / reproducing apparatus 1 according to the first embodiment can perform appropriate copyright protection for a list display image in which a plurality of reduced images indicating each of a plurality of contents are simultaneously displayed as a list.

(Embodiment 2)
The second embodiment will be described with reference to FIGS.

  The first recording / reproducing apparatus 1 in the first embodiment displays only thumbnails that are still images as a screen for allowing the user to select content. However, the first recording / reproducing apparatus 1 according to the second embodiment has a function of simultaneously displaying a thumbnail and a reduced moving image that is a reduced moving image. This function of displaying a reduced video is called a reduced video navigation function. The reduced moving image is another example of the reduced image in the copy control information determining apparatus of the present invention, and is a moving image that is reduced and displayed on the screen display.

  FIG. 8 is a diagram showing an overview of the content viewing system when the reduced moving image navigation function is activated in the first recording / playback apparatus 1 according to the second embodiment of the present invention.

  As shown in FIG. 8, a reduced moving image navigation screen is displayed on the television 2 by the reduced moving image navigation function of the first recording / reproducing apparatus 1. The image on the reduced moving image navigation screen is another example of the list display image in the copy control information determination device of the present invention.

  The functional configuration of the first recording / reproducing apparatus 1 of the second embodiment is the same as the functional configuration of the first recording / reproducing apparatus 1 of the first embodiment shown in FIG. However, when the copy control information determination unit 11, the reproduction unit 13, and the output unit 14 perform operations different from those in the first embodiment, the reduced moving image navigation function can be exhibited.

  The reduced video navigation function will be described below. In the following description, it is assumed that content data including thumbnail data 201a to thumbnail data 206a shown in FIG.

  In the system shown in FIG. 8, when activation of reduced video navigation is instructed by a user's operation on the remote controller 3, the thumbnail acquisition unit 9 acquires thumbnail data 201 a to thumbnail data 206 a from the content storage unit 8. The thumbnail acquisition unit 9 extracts thumbnail image data from each acquired thumbnail data and transmits the thumbnail image data to the list generation unit 10.

  The list generation unit 10 uses the received thumbnail image data to generate an image signal for displaying the reduced moving image navigation screen on the television 2. The generated image signal is transmitted to the output unit 14.

  The output unit 14 outputs the received image signal to the television 2 via the first output terminal 15 and outputs it to the second recording / reproducing device 20 via the second output terminal 16.

  By the operation so far, the image signal of the reduced moving image navigation screen with only the thumbnail similar to the still image thumbnail navigation screen described in the description of the first embodiment is output and displayed on the television 2.

  Here, in the initial display state of the reduced moving image navigation screen, the cursor is positioned at the position of the thumbnail 201.

  Based on an instruction from the control unit 5, the data processing unit 7 reads the substance data of the content corresponding to the thumbnail at the position where the cursor is positioned. That is, the entity data corresponding to the thumbnail data 201a is read. The read entity data is transmitted to the reproduction unit 13.

  The reproduction unit 13 reproduces the actual data, converts it into moving image data reduced to a predetermined size, and transmits it to the output unit 14. The output unit 14 superimposes the moving image data on the image signal of the reduced moving image navigation screen and outputs it.

  As a result of the above operation, the reduced moving image 201M that is the moving image of the content corresponding to the thumbnail 201 is reproduced in the same area as the display area of the thumbnail 201. In this case, the audio of the content corresponding to the reduced moving image 201M is output.

  When the number of contents stored in the content storage unit 8 is 6 or more, the user can display the remaining thumbnails and reduced videos by switching pages or scrolling on the reduced video navigation screen. .

  The user can select a thumbnail with the cross key 3 a of the remote controller 3. When any one of the thumbnails is selected, a reduced moving image of the content corresponding to the selected thumbnail is reproduced at the position of the thumbnail.

  When the reproduction key a of the remote controller 3 is pressed in the above selection, a reproduction instruction is transmitted from the remote controller 3 to the first recording / reproducing apparatus 1. In the first recording / reproducing device 1, an image signal for displaying the content selected by the user and subjected to the reproduction of the reduced moving image on the entire screen is generated and output to the television 2 and the second recording / reproducing device 20. . On the television 2, full-screen playback of the content is started.

  Specifically, the data processing unit 7 that has received an instruction from the control unit 5 causes the playback unit 13 to output an image signal for displaying the content selected by the user and subject to playback of the reduced video on the entire screen. Instruct to generate. The reproduction unit 13 generates an image signal for displaying the content on the entire screen, and transmits the image signal to the output unit 14. The output unit 14 outputs the image signal to the television 2 and the second recording / reproducing device 20.

  If any thumbnail is selected and a reduced video is displayed, and the user presses the delete key 3c of the remote control 3, the content corresponding to the selected thumbnail is deleted from the content storage unit 8. The

  Specifically, the data processing unit 7 that has received an instruction from the control unit 5 deletes the content data of the content that is selected by the user and is the target of playback of the reduced video from the content storage unit 8.

  As described above, the first recording / reproducing apparatus 1 displays a list of thumbnails that are reduced images of still images representing each content by the reduced moving image navigation function. Furthermore, the content corresponding to the thumbnail selected by the user is presented to the user as a reduced video. This function improves the convenience of operations such as content playback and content deletion performed by the user.

  Here, the first recording / reproducing apparatus 1 determines copy control information for performing appropriate copyright protection for the reduced moving image navigation screen when outputting the image signal of the reduced moving image navigation screen. This copy control information will be described below.

  As described above, any one of the copy control information of “Copy permitted”, “Copy once”, and “Copy not permitted” is added to the thumbnail. These pieces of information become “strong” as the copy control information in the order of “copying allowed”, “copying once”, and “copying impossible”. The copy control information is acquired by the thumbnail acquisition unit 9 and transmitted to the copy control information determination unit 11.

  Further, the copy control information added to the substance data of the content being reproduced as a reduced moving image changes in real time as the reproduction proceeds. Specifically, as described above, copy control information is added to each frame, which is the minimum unit constituting a moving image. Therefore, as the frames are sequentially played back, the copy control information to be merged is changed. Change.

  FIG. 9 is a diagram illustrating an example of a change over time of copy control information in the reduced moving image 201M. In FIG. 9, the horizontal axis represents time (t).

  In the time-dependent change graph 201e of FIG. 9, the shaded portion indicates “copy not possible”, and the rectangle other than the shaded line indicates “copy allowed”.

  As shown in FIG. 9, the copy control information of the frame at the time point t1 after the reproduction of the reduced moving image 201M is started is “copy OK”. In other words, the reduced moving image 201M at the time when this frame is output is “copiable”. In addition, the copy control information of the frame at the time t2 after the reproduction of the reduced moving image 201M is started is “uncopyable”. That is, the reduced moving image 201M at the time when this frame is output is “uncopyable”.

  The copy control information determination unit 11 of the first recording / playback apparatus 1 acquires copy control information for each frame of the reduced moving image included in the image signal output from the output unit 14 to the outside. That is, in the second embodiment, the copy control information determination unit 11 also functions as a control information acquisition unit in the copy control information determination unit of the present invention.

  Further, the copy control information determination unit 11 outputs the strongest copy control information among the copy control information of each thumbnail and the frame of the reduced video at each time point when the output unit 14 outputs the image signal of the reduced video navigation screen to the outside. The copy control information to be added to the image signal of the reduced moving image navigation screen is determined.

  For example, when all of the copy control information added to the thumbnail image data of the thumbnails 202 to 206 is “copy permitted”, the image signal of the reduced movie navigation screen is displayed when the reduced movie 201M is “not copyable”. Copy control information of “copy not possible” is added. Further, when the reduced moving image 201M is “copy permitted”, the copy control information “copy permitted” is added to the image signal of the reduced moving image navigation screen. That is, copy control information that changes in real time for the reduced moving image 201M is added to the image signal as it is and output.

  Further, when the thumbnail copy control information of the thumbnails 202 to 206 is the combination shown in FIG. 6, the copy control information included in the thumbnail data 204a is “uncopyable”. At any time when the signal is output, copy control information of “copy not possible” is added to the image signal and output.

  Even when the combination of the copy control information of a plurality of thumbnails and one reduced video is other than the above combination, one copy control information is determined according to the same criteria.

  As described above, the copy control information determination unit 11 uses the copy control information to be added to the image signal of the reduced moving image navigation screen, that is, the copy control information of the reduced moving image at the time of determining the representative control information, as the copy control of the reduced moving image. Consider information. Further, the strongest copy control information among the plurality of copy control information including the copy control information of the reduced moving image is determined as the representative control information.

  As for audio, only audio copy control information that changes in real time for a reduced video is added to the audio signal and output.

  Here, it is assumed that the above-described state, that is, the copy control information of the thumbnail 204 is “not copyable”, and is output in addition to the copy control information of “not copyable” to the image signal of the reduced video navigation screen. To do. Under this assumption, the operation of the first recording / playback apparatus 1 when an image is superimposed on the reduced moving image navigation screen so as to cover the thumbnail or the reduced moving image will be described with reference to FIG.

  FIG. 10 is a diagram illustrating a screen display example of the television 2 when the notification panel is displayed superimposed on the reduced moving image navigation screen.

  In the first recording / reproducing apparatus 1, the notification panel generation unit 12 generates an image signal of a notification panel for notifying a result of a user operation or a warning from a device based on an instruction from the control unit 5. The generated image signal of the notification panel is superimposed on the image signal of the reduced moving image navigation screen in the output unit 14 and is output to the television 2 and the second recording / reproducing device 20.

  For example, as shown in FIG. 10, in order to notify the user that the scheduled recording start time is approaching, a notification panel displaying “scheduled recording starts” is displayed superimposed on the reduced video navigation screen. The

  This notification panel prevents the originally displayed thumbnail or reduced video from being displayed. For example, as shown in FIG. 10, the three thumbnails 204 to 206 are obscured. That is, the thumbnail image data included in the image signal output from the first recording / reproducing apparatus 1 in this state is only two thumbnail image data of the thumbnail 202 and the thumbnail 203. In addition to the thumbnail image data, an image signal of the reduced moving image 201M is included.

  As described above, the thumbnail or reduced video data hidden by the notification panel is not output. Therefore, the copy control information added to these hidden thumbnails or reduced moving images need not be reflected in the image signal output.

  Therefore, the copy control information determination unit 11 merges only the copy control information of the thumbnail image 202 and the thumbnail 203 of the copy control information of the image that changes in real time in the reduced moving image 201M. As shown in FIG. 6, both of the copy control information added to the thumbnail image data of the thumbnail 202 and the thumbnail 203 are “copiable”. Therefore, the copy control information determination unit 11 employs copy control information of the reduced moving image 201M that changes in real time as copy control information to be added to the image signal of the still image thumbnail navigation screen.

  As a result, when the image signal of the notification panel is output, the copy control information added to the image signal of the reduced moving image navigation screen to be output to the outside changes from “uncopyable” with the reproduction of the reduced moving image 201M. It will be superseded by copy control information.

  As described above, the first recording / reproducing apparatus 1 according to the second embodiment can add the copy control information to the image signal for displaying the list of thumbnails including the reduced moving image and output the image signal.

  The copy control information is determined based on the copy control information added to the plurality of thumbnail image data included in the output image signal and the copy control information that changes with the reproduction of one reduced moving image.

  Specifically, among the plurality of copy control information and the copy control information that changes with the reproduction of the reduced video, the strongest copy control information at the time of outputting the image signal is selected and added to the image signal. The

  As a result, the image signal at the time when at least one thumbnail image data or reduced moving image is “not copyable” becomes “not copyable”. Therefore, thumbnail image data or reduced video that is “not copyable” is not copied to the output destination device.

  In addition, when at least one thumbnail image data or reduced video is “copy once” and other thumbnail image data or reduced video is “copy permitted”, the image signal including the thumbnail image data or reduced video is “Copy once”. Therefore, the thumbnail image data or reduced video that is “one copy” is permitted to be copied only once to the output destination device. Note that the audio signal associated with the reproduction of the reduced video is output as it is when not affected by the display of the notification panel.

  As described above, the first recording / reproducing apparatus 1 according to the second embodiment can appropriately protect the copyright on a list display image in which a plurality of reduced images indicating each of a plurality of contents are simultaneously displayed as a list.

  In the reduced moving image navigation screen described above, only the thumbnail selected by the user is the target of the reduced moving image. However, a plurality of reduced moving images may be reproduced on the reduced moving image navigation screen.

  For example, six reduced videos may be played back simultaneously, three reduced videos may be played back simultaneously, and the remaining three may be thumbnails that are still images.

  As described above, even when a plurality of reduced moving images are simultaneously reproduced, the first recording / reproducing apparatus 1 can appropriately determine the copy control information to be added to the image signal. Specifically, the copy control information determination unit 11 reads copy control information that changes in real time from the data of each reduced moving image input from the reproduction unit 13 to the output unit 14. Further, the plurality of read copy control information are merged, the strongest copy control information is selected, and transmitted to the output unit 14. The output unit 14 adds the copy control information transmitted from the copy control information determination unit 11 to the image signal of the reduced moving image navigation screen including a plurality of reduced moving images, and outputs it to the television 2 and the second recording / reproducing device 20.

  FIG. 11 is a diagram illustrating an example of a change over time in copy control information of each reduced moving image when six reduced moving images are simultaneously reproduced.

  In the reduced moving image navigation screen shown in FIG. 8, it is assumed that, in addition to the reduced moving image 201M, the reduced moving image 202M to the reduced moving image 206M corresponding to the thumbnails 202 to 206 are reproduced.

  The temporal change graph 201e to the temporal change graph 206e shown in FIG. 11 correspond to the reduced moving image 201M to the reduced moving image 206M, respectively. Further, in each time-dependent change graph, the hatched portion indicates that “copying is not possible”, and the portion marked with a dot indicates that “one copy”. A rectangle other than the shaded portion and the portion with a dot indicates that “copying is possible”.

  For example, all the copy control information is “copiable” at the time t1 after the playback of each reduced video is started. Therefore, at this point, the copy control information of “Copy Allowed” is added to the image signal of the reduced moving image navigation screen and output.

  Also, at the time t2 since the start of the playback of each reduced video, the copy control information of the reduced video 202M, the reduced video 204M, and the reduced video 205M is “copy OK”, but other copy control information “Cannot copy”. Therefore, at this time, copy control information of “copy not possible” is added to the image signal of the reduced moving image navigation screen and output.

  Further, at the time t3 after the start of the reproduction of each reduced moving image, the copy control information other than the copy control information of the reduced moving image 206M is “copy OK”. Further, the copy control information of the reduced moving image 206M is “one copy”. Therefore, at this time, the copy control information of “one copy” is added to the image signal of the reduced moving image navigation screen and output.

  As described above, even when a plurality of reduced moving images are simultaneously reproduced, the first recording / reproducing apparatus 1 can output an image signal to which appropriate copy control information is added to the outside.

  In the first and second embodiments, when the notification panel is displayed so as to be superimposed on the display screen, only the copy control information of the thumbnail and the reduced video currently output without being hidden by the notification panel is to be merged. did.

  Similarly, when scrolling the screen display, the copy control information of the thumbnail or reduced video displayed on the television 2 may be merged to determine copy control information to be added to the image signal.

  That is, the copy control information to be added to the image signal may be determined according to the copy control information of the thumbnail or reduced moving image data substantially included in the image signal output to the outside.

  The image signal that is scrolled by the user's operation is generated and output by the first recording / reproducing apparatus 1, and it is possible to capture which thumbnail and reduced video are output to the outside.

  For example, the copy control information determination unit 11 may acquire information about which thumbnails and reduced moving images are output from the image signal output from the output unit 14. Thereby, even for an image that is scrolled by a user operation, copy control information to be added to the image signal at that time can be determined in real time.

  In the first and second embodiments, when the notification panel is displayed so as to be superimposed on the display screen, thumbnails or reduced video copy control information, which is entirely hidden by the notification panel, is added to the image signal. Suppose that you want to exclude from the merge target to determine the copy control information to be.

  However, even when a part of the thumbnail or reduced video is hidden by the notification panel, the copy control information of the thumbnail or reduced video may be excluded from the merge target. Whether or not to be merged may be determined based on the ratio displayed without being hidden by the notification panel.

  For example, when the ratio of the area that is not hidden by the notification panel is 20% or more in the entire display area of the thumbnail, it may be provided that the copy control information of the thumbnail is to be merged.

  Further, when the notification panel has transparency, the image displayed under the notification panel increases in proportion to being displayed in proportion to the transparency of the notification panel. Therefore, if the image underneath is not completely invisible, it may be determined whether or not to be merged according to the transparency of the notification panel.

  For example, when the transparency of the notification panel is 50% or more, a rule may be provided in which the copy control information of the thumbnail below it is to be merged.

  Further, it may be determined whether or not the thumbnail or the reduced moving image is to be merged by simultaneously considering the ratio at which the thumbnail or the reduced moving image is displayed without being hidden by the reduction notification panel and the transparency of the notification panel.

  The ratio of the area that is not hidden by the notification panel and the transparency of the notification panel, which are the criteria for merging the copy control information of a thumbnail or reduced video, are the content of the content that contains the thumbnail or reduced video. The copyright holder may decide. In this case, information such as the above-mentioned ratio determined by the copyright holder is added to the content data, and the copy control information determination unit 11 merges the copy control information of the thumbnail or reduced video based on the information. What is necessary is just to determine whether it makes object.

  In this way, by determining the copy control information to be added to the output image signal according to the substantial display form of the reduced image that is a thumbnail or reduced video, for the image signal including the reduced image data, More substantial copyright protection can be achieved.

  In the first recording / reproducing apparatus 1, the thumbnail acquisition unit 9 extracts thumbnail image data (see FIG. 4) included in advance in the content data. However, when outputting the image signal of the still image thumbnail navigation screen or the reduced video navigation screen, the still image data may be extracted from the substance data of the content and the still image may be output to the outside.

  For example, the thumbnail acquisition unit 9 may extract a still image that is 5 seconds after the start of reproduction of each content from the actual data of each content. Further, the position from which each still image is extracted in each content data may be defined by a predetermined time from the start of reproduction as described above, or may be specified for each content.

  As described above, when extracting still image data to be a thumbnail from the entity data every time a thumbnail is output, the copy control information corresponding to the position of the still image data may be extracted together. For example, in FIG. 5, if it is still image data at the time t1 from the start of reproduction, it will be extracted together with the copy control information of “Copy Allowed”.

  In this way, even if the content handled by the first recording / playback apparatus 1 is content in a data format that does not have thumbnail image data and its copy control information separately from the actual data of the content, the image data included in the content Can be properly protected.

  Also, when the moving image content is data compressed by the MPEG (Moving Picture Experts Group) method and the frame extracted as a thumbnail is a P picture or a B picture, for example, even if the immediately preceding I picture is extracted as a thumbnail Good.

  Further, as shown in FIG. 5 and the like, it is assumed that copy control information is added for each frame constituting the moving image in the content handled by the first recording / reproducing apparatus 1. However, the copy control information may not be added for each frame. For example, it may be added in units of blocks composed of a plurality of frames. Further, in content that does not need to change the copy control information in real time with reproduction, only one copy control information may be added to the content. That is, it is only necessary that the copy control information for each image included in the reduced moving image can be specified.

  In any of these cases, for example, the thumbnail acquisition unit 9 may specify copy control information corresponding to a frame acquired as a thumbnail according to the unit to which the copy control information is added. Further, for example, the copy control information determination unit 11 may specify the copy control information corresponding to each frame of the reduced moving image output to the outside by the output unit 14 according to the unit to which the copy control information is added.

  In other words, the first recording / reproducing apparatus 1 according to the first and second embodiments is applicable to any content that can specify the copy control information for each image data included in the entity data regardless of the unit of data to which the copy control information is added. Can appropriately protect the copyright of the image data included in these contents.

  Further, the content handled by the first recording / reproducing apparatus 1 is assumed to be moving image content. However, the content handled by the first recording / reproducing apparatus 1 may be content including only still images. Any content can be used as long as it can acquire the copy control information of the image when extracting the image from the content.

  Further, the output unit 14 of the first recording / reproducing apparatus 1 adds the copy control information to the output image signal and outputs it. However, it does not have to be added and output, and at least the output image signal and the copy control information need only be associated with each other so that they can be synchronized. In this case, for example, an external device that receives the associated image signal and copy control information may associate the image signal with the copy control information.

  Further, the present invention has been described using a recording / reproducing apparatus for recording and reproducing contents as an example of the copy control information determining apparatus of the present invention. However, the copy control information determination apparatus of the present invention can be implemented in forms other than the content recording / playback apparatus.

  For example, the copy control information determination apparatus of the present invention may be implemented as a set-top box that is a device that provides an additional function by connecting to a home television, such as a control box that receives a broadcast program of cable television.

  Further, the copy control information determination device of the present invention may not be a mode of reading content data from a storage device provided therein, like the first recording / reproducing device 1 in the first and second embodiments. For example, the present invention may be implemented as a playback device that reads content data from a storage medium such as a DVD, a Blu-ray disc, or a semiconductor memory.

  That is, the copy control information determination device of the present invention has a function of acquiring copy control information of still images or moving images included in each content from a plurality of content data. Further, it has a function of determining copy control information to be added to a signal of an image including a plurality of reduced images of still images or moving images based on the plurality of acquired copy control information. Further, it has a function of outputting the determined copy control information. With these functions, appropriate copyright protection can be performed on an image on which a plurality of reduced images representing each of a plurality of contents are displayed simultaneously.

  Therefore, the copy control information determination device of the present invention can be implemented even in a device that does not have content itself, such as the above-described set-top box or storage medium playback device. In this case, the data format of the content may be a data format that the thumbnail image data has separately from the entity data as described above, and is a data format in which it is necessary to extract thumbnail image data from the entity data. May be.

  Further, the copy control information is assumed to be any one of “copy permitted”, “single copy permitted”, and “copy not permitted”. However, information other than the information described above may be used as long as it is information regarding copy restrictions. In this case, the order of strength may be specified based on the copyright protection function of the copy control information. Further, the copy control information determination unit 11 may store a plurality of pieces of copy control information and information regarding their rank. The copy control information determination unit 11 may determine the representative control information based on the information.

  In addition, when the copy control information is subjected to conditions such as a time restriction or a restriction for each type of playback device, for example, the copy control information determination unit 11 considers the conditions such as the date and time or the type of playback device. It is only necessary to acquire information for performing and determine representative control information.

  That is, the copy control information determination unit may determine the representative control information in consideration of necessary conditions based on the copy control information of the reduced images included in the list display image.

  By doing so, the first recording / reproducing apparatus 1 can be appropriately operated even when the copyright protection of the content, the standard regarding the data format, or the like changes depending on the region or the era.

  In addition, when copy control information of a reduced image that is a thumbnail or a reduced video cannot be specified, such as when the content data does not include copy control information at all, for example, the copy control information of the reduced image acquired from the content is set to “ It may be handled as “copy not possible”.

  By doing so, it is possible to provide the first recording / reproducing apparatus 1 that operates safely from the viewpoint of copyright protection even for content that cannot be specified as to whether or not copying is possible.

  Further, the content data processed by the first recording / reproducing apparatus 1 may not be digital data. For example, in analog broadcasting, copy control information may be embedded and transmitted during a broadcast wave blanking period. In this case, for example, the data processing unit 7 or the thumbnail acquisition unit 9 may extract the copy control information embedded in the broadcast wave and associate it with the image data included in the broadcast wave. The same applies when copy control information is added as a digital watermark to a broadcast wave.

  That is, the content data may be digital data or analog data as long as copy control information relating to an image to be received and output can be acquired.

  Thus, by making the first recording / reproducing apparatus 1 correspond to the analog content data, it is possible to appropriately protect the copyright even for the image of the list of reduced images obtained from the analog content data.

  In the first and second embodiments, the case where the number of thumbnails and reduced moving images simultaneously displayed on the television 2 is six has been described. However, it is not limited to this number, and the copyright of the image output to the outside can be protected in an arbitrary number.

  For example, even when only one thumbnail or only one reduced video is displayed, the copy control information is determined according to the rules shown in the first and second embodiments of the present invention. Specifically, copy control information for one thumbnail displayed or copy control information for one reduced moving image that changes in real time is added to the image signal output.

  For example, even when six or more thumbnails are displayed at the same time, the copy control information determination unit 11 may merge the copy control information of the thumbnails.

  By doing so, for example, even in a recording / reproducing apparatus having a specification capable of changing the number of thumbnails and reduced moving images that can be displayed on the list by the user, the copyright of the images on the list can be protected.

  Also, some or all of the components of the first recording / reproducing apparatus 1 shown in FIG. 3 may be realized as an LSI, which is an integrated circuit, by combining the components. These may be individually made into one chip, or may be made into one chip so as to include some or all of the components.

  FIG. 12 is a diagram showing an example of a range of components realized as an integrated circuit in the first recording / reproducing apparatus 1 of the first and second embodiments. A range surrounded by a dotted line in the figure shows an example of a range of components realized as an integrated circuit. That is, the copy control information determination apparatus of the present invention may be realized as an integrated circuit such as an LSI.

  The copy control information determination device of the present invention can determine and output appropriate copy control information when outputting an image signal for displaying a plurality of thumbnails or reduced moving images on one screen. Therefore, it is most suitable for a recording / reproducing apparatus or a set top box that requires a function relating to copyright protection.

FIG. 1 is a diagram showing an overview of a content viewing system when a still image thumbnail navigation function is activated in a conventional recording / playback apparatus. FIG. 2 is a diagram showing an overview of the content viewing system when the still image thumbnail navigation function is activated in the first recording / reproducing apparatus 1 according to the first embodiment of the present invention. FIG. 3 is a functional block diagram showing a functional configuration of the first recording / reproducing apparatus according to the first and second embodiments of the present invention. FIG. 4 is a diagram showing an example of the data structure of content data FIG. 5 is a diagram showing an example of a change with time of copy control information added to content entity data. FIG. 6 is a diagram illustrating an example of a plurality of thumbnail data stored in the content storage unit. FIG. 7 is a diagram illustrating an example of a television screen display when a notification panel is superimposed on a still image thumbnail screen. FIG. 8 is a diagram showing an overview of the content viewing system when the reduced video navigation function is activated in the first recording / playback apparatus 1 according to the second embodiment of the present invention. FIG. 9 is a diagram illustrating an example of a change over time of copy control information in a reduced moving image. FIG. 10 is a diagram showing a screen display example of a television when a notification panel is superimposed on the reduced video navigation screen. FIG. 11 is a diagram illustrating an example of a change over time in copy control information of each reduced moving image when six reduced moving images are simultaneously reproduced. FIG. 12 is a diagram showing an example of a range of components realized as an integrated circuit in the first recording / reproducing apparatus 1 of the first and second embodiments.

Explanation of symbols

DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 1st recording / reproducing apparatus 2 Television 3 Remote control 4 Reception part 5 Control part 6 Data receiving part 7 Data processing part 8 Content storage part 9 Thumbnail acquisition part 10 List generation part 11 Copy control information determination part 12 Notification panel generation part 13 Playback part 14 Output Unit 15 First Output Terminal 16 Second Output Terminal 20 Second Recording / Reproducing Device 60 Antenna

Claims (13)

Control information acquisition means for acquiring individual control information that is copy control information for each of a plurality of reduced images displayed in a list simultaneously;
A determination unit that determines representative control information that is copy control information of a list display image on which the plurality of reduced images are displayed in a list based on the plurality of individual control information acquired by the control information acquisition unit;
A copy control information determination apparatus comprising: output means for outputting the representative control information determined by the determination means in association with the list display image. The copy control information determining apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the determining means determines individual control information having the strongest copyright protection function among the plurality of individual control information as the representative control information. The individual control information is one of copy-permitted, one-time copy-permitted, and non-copy-permitted. One-time copy-permitted has a stronger copyright protection function than the copy-permitted, and one-time uncopyable The copy control information determination apparatus according to claim 2, wherein the copyright protection function of the individual control information is stronger than copying is possible. Among the plurality of reduced images, at least one is a reduced moving image that is a reduced moving image,
Copy control information of each image constituting the reduced video is specified,
The copy control information determination according to claim 1, wherein the determination unit determines the representative control information by regarding the copy control information of the reduced moving image at the time of determining the representative control information as individual control information of the reduced moving image. apparatus. Furthermore, it comprises image signal acquisition means for acquiring signals of the list display image,
The copy control information determination apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the output unit adds the representative control information to a signal of the list display image acquired by the image signal acquisition unit and outputs the signal. The image signal acquisition means further acquires a signal of a sub-image that is displayed superimposed on a part of the list display image,
The output means superimposes the sub-image signal on the list display image signal,
The determining means determines the representative control information based on individual control information of a reduced image displayed without being hidden by the sub-image,
The copy control information determination apparatus according to claim 5, wherein the reduced image displayed without being hidden by the sub-image is an image in which a predetermined ratio or more of the entire reduced image is displayed. The copy control information according to claim 6, wherein the predetermined ratio is a ratio that is displayed without being hidden by the sub-image, depending on a positional relationship between the sub-image and the reduced image, or depending on transparency of the sub-image. Decision device. The reduced image is an image showing content stored in a predetermined storage medium,
The content includes entity data of the content, the still image that is the reduced image, and copy control information of the still image, which are associated with each other,
The copy control information determination apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the control information acquisition unit acquires the copy control information from the predetermined storage medium as the individual control information. The reduced image is an image showing content stored in a predetermined storage medium,
The content has entity data of the content,
The entity data includes one or more images including an image to be the reduced image and copy control information associated with each of the one or more images,
The copy control information determination device according to claim 1, wherein the control information acquisition unit acquires, as the individual control information, copy control information corresponding to the reduced image from entity data of the content stored in the predetermined storage medium. . Furthermore, it has a receiving means for receiving content that is a broadcast program,
The reduced image is an image showing content received by the receiving means,
The content includes entity data of the content, the still image that is the reduced image, and copy control information of the still image, which are associated with each other,
The copy control information determination apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the control information acquisition unit acquires the copy control information received by the reception unit as the individual control information. Furthermore, it has a receiving means for receiving content that is a broadcast program,
The content has entity data of the content,
The entity data includes one or more images including an image to be the reduced image and copy control information associated with each of the one or more images,
The copy control information determination device according to claim 1, wherein the control information acquisition unit acquires copy control information corresponding to the reduced image as the individual control information from entity data of the content received by the reception unit. An acquisition step of acquiring individual control information that is copy control information of each of the plurality of reduced images displayed in a list simultaneously;
A determination step of determining representative control information that is copy control information of a list display image on which the plurality of reduced images are displayed in a list based on the plurality of individual control information acquired in the acquisition step;
An output step of outputting the representative control information determined in the determining step in association with the list display image. An acquisition step of acquiring individual control information that is copy control information of each of the plurality of reduced images displayed in a list simultaneously;
A determination step of determining representative control information that is copy control information of a list display image on which the plurality of reduced images are displayed in a list based on the plurality of individual control information acquired in the acquisition step;
A program for causing a computer to execute an output step of outputting the representative control information determined in the determination step in association with the list display image.

Images